THE 



TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF THE 



CEYLON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XXXIV. COLOMBO, MAY 15th, 1910. No. 5. 



PROGRESS IN CEYLON AGRI- 

 CULTURE. 



So long as the agriculturist remains 

 at the primitive stage of agriculture 

 which we have described elsewhere as 

 "grow what you want, and consume 

 what you grow," he is practically inde- 

 pendent of the general progress of the 

 world ; he shuts himself out from it. 

 Were there no other people in the 

 country, it might just as well be non- 

 existent, and would not be missed if 

 carried away by a volcanic eruption. It 

 does not alter the general position that 

 some of the things the cultivator may 

 require, e.g., his clothes or his furniture, 

 are made by the artisans employed by 

 the village and paid by a levy on the 

 crops of that village. So long as this 

 system goes on, and the man does not 

 have to go outside the village to get 

 what he wants, so long is he practically 

 independent of the outside world. 



Such a position of native agriculture 

 may be, and in the past often has been, 

 regarded as an ideal, and there is some- 

 thing to be said for it, for so long as it 

 holds, the agriculturist is independent 

 of fluctuations in the market value of 

 crops that he grows, and is independent 

 of other peoples' improvement in the 

 production of those crops. 



But for good or evil, the policy of the 

 various tropical Governments has al- 

 ways been against this ideal. Not only 



have they made efforts to improve the 

 actual agriculture of the natives, but— 

 and this is of far greater importance — 

 they have made roads all over the 

 country, an absolutely unnecessary 

 luxury if the simple ideal is to be fol- 

 lowed. And they have provided edu- 

 cation, another entirely unnecessary 

 thing. In these and other ways, the 

 Governments have done much to break 

 up the old primitive simplicity. Let it 

 be noted that so long as agriculture in 

 the country works upon such lines, so 

 long there can be little exportable value, 

 and consequently there can be little to 

 tax, so that the Government must be 

 content with a small revenue and a 

 small establishment. On the other hand, 

 of coarse, there need be no expenditure 

 upon public works, railways, education 

 and other things. A country in such a 

 state is of no importance to the world 

 at large at the present time. 



In actual fact there is in most Eastern 

 countries sufficient local capitalism to 

 interfere to some extent with the follow- 

 ing of this ideal, but it must be clearly 

 understood that till the development of 

 transport facilities, and still more the 

 introduction of foreigh labour into those 

 countries where labour was not easily 

 procurable, it could not develope upon 

 any large scale. Until that stage was 

 reached, it could only reap its interest 

 in a tax on the crops of the villagers, 

 who paid say 50% of the crop for the 



